Page:Side talks with girls (1895).djvu/73

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Quiet Walks for Girls
61

when she worked, unknown, to make this reputation? They hear of a woman painter who got a big check for her picture. They think they have talent of the same sort. There are millions of women who have thought the same, but who today are decorating cups and saucers that do not sell. Won't my girls have the moral courage to try and earn the bread and butter in one of the quiet walks of life? What are the quiet paths of life? Well, here is one:

THE NURSERY GOVERNESS

You may be only seventeen years old when it becomes necessary for you to take care of yourself; you know nothing of Greek or Latin, and you could not train a young girl for college, but you have the three R's at your finger-tips, you are good-tempered, and you have accumulated a store of patience. Now try for the position of nursery governess. In a big city I'll tell you what that means. At nine o'clock in the morning you enter the nursery where your small pupils are, ranging in years from three to seven; probably there are three of them. There is a pleasant "How-do-you-do," because, first of all, you must make them like you. And then the so-called lessons begin. The seven-year-old, having mastered her letters and knowing how to read in single- and